Jean Todt: Exclusive interview

Two hours and sixteen minutes of interview! And several weeks of preparation, with the entire editorial team, for this face-to-face meeting that AUTOhebdo wanted to have with the President of the International Automobile Federation. To review Mobility and Security, Endurance, Formula 1, Rally, Tourism and Grand Tourism. If we are publishing this exceptional interview this week, it is above all to celebrate the advent of a new world championship, which will begin in ten days at Sebring. While waiting for March 17, and knowing the names of the first winners in Florida, find this marathon interview in AUTOhebdo.

You were elected to head the FIA ​​on October 23, 2009. You have therefore reached the second half of your four-year mandate. I first want to ask you if you are a happy president?
Being a perfectionist, manic, anxious person, I am never satisfied. I consider that what is going well is normal, so I prioritize what is not going well. It is also, I recognize it, what has allowed me to have a rather busy career, during which I have achieved numerous successes. So, this search for perfection prevents me from being happy. Even if it was me who chose to be a candidate for the presidency of the FIA. Nobody forced me to! But what pushes me into this mission is the possibility of bringing people together and being involved alongside them.

Looking back now, was it really that easy to succeed Max Mosley?
Life is made up of successions! Even though Max Mosley (President of the FIA ​​from 1993 to 2009. Editor's note) had suggested to me a long time ago that I run for the presidency of the FIA, even if it took me three or four years before following his advice. , even if he was the first to support me, we are fundamentally different. Temperament and behavior. As for whether it was easy to succeed him... Everything that is done by a president, especially when he is a volunteer, should probably be more "gentle" if I may say so. People underestimate the enormous difficulty of the task.

Find the entirety of this exclusive 14-page interview with Jean Todt, President of the FIA, in your AUTOhebdo magazine, on newsstands since this morning.